July 19, 2008

I'm seeing the interest in social CRM/CRM 2.0 growing very rapidly - and I'm loving it! And the question I'm getting a lot lately is, well, what is social CRM? Just like the millions of definitions floating around for CRM 1.0 (people, process, technology, yada, yada, yada...), there will no doubt be just as many out there for SCRM. And that's the way it should be when you think about it, as each company's strategy for "rapping" with customers (and prospects, partners, vendors, bloggers, etc.) should be uniquely theirs. I've written a few articles/posts on my evolving definition of SCRM that go into more detail:

Definitions aside, here's a quick compare/contrast for what is social CRM and what isn't - Twitter is.... email marketing isn't. Here are a few reason's why:

Following someone on Twitter is truly under the controller of the follower. Yeah I know email marketing has opt-in, double opt-in and all of the stuff. And I also know that almost EVERY networking even I go to, if I exchanged cards with someone I will undoubtedly end up getting somebody's newsletter. Folks, just because I gave you my business card does not implicitly mean I've ok'd you to add me to your list. At least ask my if it's ok....so I can tell you it isn't. And if I did opt-in to a list then decided to opt out later on, I still have to follow up a few times to actually get opted out. With Twitter, I can follow and un-follow with the same ease and quickness.

Tweets can be conversational. I have asked specific questions on Twitter and received immediate replies. I've asked for feedback for things I do and have received almost instantaneous responses, and some pretty good advice. I've started cool relationships that started from tweets. That's because Twitter spawns conversations based on the interests of people at the time of the tweet - like a good running dialog. Newsletters are monologues. They are typically one-sided, as the sender decides what goes into it, when it's sent, how often it's sent, what to emphasize, etc. Now this doesn't have to be a negative. And good senders should have a good handle on what information people want from them, but the final call is still theirs - not the receivers.

Twitter is fast and easy to use. Just type a short message and click. Those following you get it. You don't need to track bounce backs, or cleanse email addresses. Those following you handle that. They also handle how they receive your tweets - on mobile devices, in Outlook, or Facebook, and a number of other ways they choose to. And you can even "phone in" tweets via a free service like Jott.

Twitter can give a pulse for what's going on now... right now. There's a lot of chatter on Twitter, most of it I'm not all that interested in. But there's still a lot of it that I do want. Using a tool like TweetDeck makes Twitter even better as it lets you create groups, so you can segment the people you follow, making it easier to concentrate on information coming from one group over others. TweetDeck also let's you create search result panels for terms and phrases you're tracking - so anytime that phrase is used in a tweet you'll know about it. Oh yeah TweetDeck makes it even easier to "retweet", which is actually a pretty important social concept when you think about it.

Twitter has spawned some cool tools that help you "dig in" to see who's talking about what. Check out Twitter Stream Graphs (Thanks Steve Rubel) and the nice graph it puts together from the tweets that include the term "social crm":

And one more from TweetStats that gives some nice pictures for my Twitter usage:

What's nice about this is that it's pretty. Ok besides the aesthetics, it's a quick way to see the words and phrases being used in relation to the keywords you're tracking. This could lead you to other relevant conversations and other people to build relationships with. And the last image is great for that, as you can type in any body's Twitter handle and see who are the people they reply to the most. So if you like the tweets coming from that individual, and they are conversing heavily with a few other people, then it maybe worthwhile to follow them as well. Now that's Social CRM in full effect!

So these are a few reasons (among many others I'm not mentioning right now) why I think Twitter is a Social CRM tool, while email marketing is not. BUT THAT'S OK. I'm not here to bury email marketing, although the thought does cross my mind every time I get buried under newsletters I never signed up for, or ones I've opted out of before...several times before. Email marketing is still a very valuable traditional CRM tool. And, as I quote myself from a previous post, Traditional CRM + Social CRM = REAL CRM. Email marketing fills an important role in the process of keeping in touch with customers. And let's face it, you can't get every message or thought across in 140 characters or less. If I could do that I wouldn't be writing this post - but with the help of Twitterfeed those who follow me on Twitter will get a tweet leading them to this...but once again I digress.

The key here is to use a mix of social AND traditional tools to increase opportunities to enter into new relationships, while also solidifying/expanding existing ones. And if you're "down" with that, let's follow each other on Twitter. I'm @ www.twitter.com/learyb. Just don't automatically opt me into your newsletter list.

Solid post. I think where people get the hang up is that in CRM 1.0, the process is, or can be, defined and put on paper. In social CRM, how do you put a process for "listening" and pro-active responses?

Yes, it makes good sense, but for those who aren't gospel preachers, it's a barrier to entry.

I couldn't agree more with you. People tend to view technology as "the silver bullet" and rush to it before putting together the right strategy - which the tools should support.

Buying a tool is always the easy part, which becomes ridiculously easy when the tools are free. But great tools only lead to bigger, more fantastic failures if your strategy stinks... or is non-existant.